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...Convert Between Pixel and World Coordinates

You may use a pointer to a FrameSet, such as we read in [*], to transform a set of points between the pixel coordinates of an image and the associated world coordinates. If you are working in two dimensions, proceed as follows:

      INTEGER N
      DOUBLE PRECISION XPIXEL( N ), YPIXEL( N )
      DOUBLE PRECISION XWORLD( N ), YWORLD( N )

      ...

      CALL AST_TRAN2( WCSINFO, N, XPIXEL, YPIXEL, .TRUE.,
     :                            XWORLD, YWORLD, STATUS )

Here, N is the number of points to be transformed, XPIXEL and YPIXEL hold the pixel coordinates, and XWORLD and YWORLD receive the returned world coordinates.5 To transform in the opposite direction, interchange the two pairs of arrays (so that the world coordinates are given as input) and change the fifth argument of AST_TRAN2 to .FALSE..

To transform points in one dimension, use AST_TRAN1. In any other number of dimensions (or if the number of dimensions is initially unknown), use AST_TRANN. These routines are described in [*].

For more information about transforming coordinates, see [*] and [*]. For details of how to handle missing coordinates, see [*].


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AST A Library for Handling World Coordinate Systems in Astronomy
Starlink User Note 210
R.F. Warren-Smith & D.S. Berry
24th May 2011
E-mail:ussc@star.rl.ac.uk

Copyright (C) 2009 Science \& Technology Facilities Council